There is a saying, “It takes one to know one.” I am a convicted felon, former CPA, and former criminal CFO of Crazy Eddie. Today, I teach law enforcement agencies and professionals how to identify fraud and train them to catch the crooks. This blog investigates white-collar crime, securities fraud, accounting irregularities, corruption, and other related topics. Accounting irregularities investigated by me are referred to appropriate government agencies as a whistleblower.

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Thursday, August 02, 2007

Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com, Dodges Questions about SEC Subpoenas and Plays Games

To Patrick Byrne (CEO of Overstock.com):

Recently, on the Slashdot internet message board, I asked you simple and straight forward questions relating to the personal Securities and Exchange Commission subpoena that you received on May 17, 2006 but was not disclosed by Overstock.com until about a year later on May 9, 2007.You continue to dodge questions about the SEC subpoenas. You have falsely claimed that the "heart of the investigation is not...Overstock-centric."However, Overstock.com, you, and others working in collusion with you are under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Will you admit that Overstock.com and you are the focus of an investigation by the SEC? Are you afraid to show transparency by answering my questions?Rather than show the transparency that you claim to have, you identified me as a crook and posted (link here or see copy below) innuendo filled deflections on the Slashdot message board.My response to your refusal to answer questions and your allegationsIt is quite ironic that you are using your antisocialmedia.net smear web site to host an image of my Yahoo post in your response to me. As detailed in this blog and other blogs, Overstock.com's Director of Communications, Judd Bagley, who administers antisocialmedia.net on your behalf, has used physical threats, blackmail, anti-Semitic comments, smears, and other despicable actions as tools to carry out your vendettas against your critics. Acting as your proxy, Judd Bagley has posted the home addresses and IP addresses of certain critics on your antisocialmedia.net smear web site. Your other pal Bob O'Brien, aka Phil Saunders, has posted the location and identities of immediate family members (including a child) of Marc Cohodes (a money manager from a firm you are suing). You in turn have contributed at least $75,000 to your buddy Bob O'Brien aka Phil Saunders NCANS organization and your company provides links to his smear web site. Your henchman, Judd Bagley, using one of his multiple anonymous aliases (pananapump), has called Bob O'Brien a "hero" on the Yahoo message boards. Your crony, Bob O'Brien still refuses to identify himself although media reports identify him as Phil Saunders. Your crony, Judd Bagley has permitted the posting of anti-Semitic comments, physical threats, and smears directed against your critics on antisociamedia.net. In addition, Judd Bagley had threatened my family and my future employability in a Yahoo post using the anonymous alias, panamapump. Judd Bagley was upset that I had visited the antisocialmedia.net smear web site in an effort to report your vile, malicious, and despicable activities. Judd Bagley has been kicked off of both Yahoo and InvestorVillage for his cyber stalking and harassment of your critics under multiple anonymous ids. You have permitted Judd Bagley to stalk your critics on internet message boards using anonymous aliases. You have threatened, harassed, intimidated, and smeared your critics on the internet and elsewhere.It was only after my family and I had been threatened by Judd Bagley and certain personal information on a web site relating to my son and immediate family was linked to in posts on Yahoo over several days, that I posted your home address, Evren Karpak's (an antisocialmedia.net contributor) home address, and the names of Judd Bagley's wife and children (without identifying Judd's home address) on Yahoo. My Yahoo post that you refer to in your Shashdot post contains no threats. In addition, Judd Bagley has no issue with the names of his wife and children being posted on other internet web sites that show his family tree and are easily accessible in a Google search.I had apologized to you, Evren Karpak, and Judd Bagley for my Yahoo post and asked Yahoo to take it down the next day. I was wrong to lower myself to your lack of morality and go into the mud with you. However, afterwards you in turn re-posted that same offending link to the web site that clearly lists my son's name, office address, and other personal information relating to my immediate family on Overstock.com's web site. My name was nowhere to be found on that web site you had linked to. However, my son's name is listed on that web site. You have not been contrite about any of your vile, malicious, and despicable actions. Instead to have continued your attempts to instill fear in any potential critics by harassment, intimidation, litigation, smears, and any other tool you deem fit to use. You have not apologized or taken any steps to stop your despicable behavior.Neither you or Judd Bagley has ever apologized for the use of anti-Semitic comments and smears directed at me and others on antisocialmedia.net. You and Judd Bagley have never apologized for the physical threats that were posted on antisocialmedia.net. Judd Bagley and Evren Karpak have never apologized for blackmailing the blogger Scipio Africanus on your behalf. You have never apologized for Judd Bagley's and Evren Karpak's vile, malicious, and despicable actions in carrying out your vendettas against your critics. Instead you have encouraged the use of anti-Semitic comments, physical threats, the posting of personal information about your critics, blackmail, and smears to harass, intimidate, and silence your critics.Any mistakes that I have made (which I have since apologized for) are no excuse for your vile, malicious, and despicable conduct and actions that continue today. Your despicable actions and the vile and malicious actions of those persons working in concert with you have been detailed by me and others who are not afraid of you and your cronies. The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating Overstock.com, you, and others working in collusion with you. I can see why you are afraid to answer questions about your questionable conduct. You must have a lot to hide.Therefore, I ask you to answer my questions again. If you are afraid to answer my questions about the SEC subpoenas, then be a man and say it rather than hide through your deflections. Your deflections, childish behavior, and antics will not work when you testify in sworn depositions and possibly at a future trial.Again, I ask you to answer the questions below.Questions about the delay in disclosing your personal SEC subpoenaDo you seriously expect anyone to believe that your press release issued on May 9, 2006 was responding to a personal SEC subpoena that you later received on May 17, 2006?Is it your position that any person reading your May 9, 2006 press release would have known that you were going to receive a personal SEC subpoena on May 17, 2006?
If it is your position that the May 9, 2006 press release was adequate disclosure of both subpoenas, why did Overstock.com make a disclosure of your personal SEC subpoena about a year later on May 9, 2007?Is it your position that there are no issues relating to the timing of disclosures by Overstock.com about your personal SEC subpoena?Do you believe that your public comments on message boards concerning these subpoenas have been consistent with all of Overstock's disclosures in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission?Why didn't Overstock.com disclose your personal SEC subpoena (received on May 17, 2006) on an earlier date?When did each Audit Committee member individually learn about your personal SEC subpoena (received on May 17, 2006)?When did personnel at PriceWaterhouseCoopers learn about your personal SEC subpoena (received on May 17, 2006)?When did you first discuss your personal SEC subpoena (received on May 17, 2006) with Overstock.com General Counsel Jonathan Johnson?If it is your position that there was nothing improper with the delay by Overstock.com in disclosing your personal SEC subpoena, why did the company choose to disclose it at all?If you truly wish to clear up this issue, why not respond to each of my questions individually in a clear, unambiguous, and truthful manner?Rather than address my questions, you had posted the following response on Slashdot

Hi Sam the Crook, "If you truly wish to clear up this issue, why not respond to each of my questions individually in a clear, unambiguous, and truthful manner?"Ummm, could it be because collecitvely they number in the thousands, and I cannot say I've ever actually read one of your postings closely? I really want to help you here, Sam, but I just need to know how you are using the English language, because it seems a little disjoint to me. When you answer this question, I will be able to understand your verb tenses, and general sense of reality, enough to answer your questions. So let us try again: When I, on May 9, said that I was the first CEO to celebrate receiving an SEC subpoena, was I telling the truth about being a CEO who had received a subpoena, or not? Get back to me with an answer, and I'll be able to make sense of your questions, Sam.Patrick PS In case any member of the public wanders by, please understand that this guy I am conversing with is a convicted felon who ratted out his own family to reduce his own jail time. Recently he was kicked off of YAHOO (no easy feat, that) for threatening children (see below). Because he apparently has absolutely no moral center, Sam has in recent months become a favorite of hedge fund choagies like Herb Greenberg, who is promoting Sam so he can have someone new with whom to practice crony journalism. Next will be, I am sure, a flattering pieces in DJ by Carol Remond, a write up in NYPost by Roddy Boyd, a Fortune cover by Bethany McLean, and a special WSJ profile by Karen "We-can-do-this-the-hard-way-or-the-easy-way" Richardson (that is, that pack of independent journalists who randomly happen to cover precisely those firms shorted by Rocker, Cohodes, Ackerman, Steve Cohen, Einhorn, Dan Loeb/Jim Caruthers, etc., over and over with complete regularity in a way that is, all observers are clear, entirely coincidental). Seriously, check it out: http://antisocialmedia.net/070714-antar.jpg [antisocialmedia.net].** Note: To avoid visitors to your antisocialmedia.net smear web site getting their personal information published, a copy of the Yahoo post is provided here.Stop your evil actions and seek helpYour despicable conduct has made you the laughing stock of America. I call on you to stop your smear campaign, take down your antisocialmedia.net web site, and end your vile, malicious, and despicable behavior. You should resign from Overstock.com, admit your sins to the government investigators, apologize for your evil actions, and seek help from a psychiatrist. Otherwise, you may end up like a hog in cage.If anything is ruining Overstock.com, it is you.Written by:Sam E. Antar (former Crazy Eddie CFO & convicted felon)Note: I worked as the CFO for Crazy Eddie Antar, "the Darth Vader of Capitalism."Patrick Byrne still has not identified the Sith Lord.Other blogs covering Overstock.com and Patrick ByrneGary WeissJeff MatthewsHerb GreenbergTracy CoenenDeal BreakerFloyd Norris (Subscription Required)Hedge FunniesO-SmearArticles on Overstock.com and Patrick Byrne

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